Monday, September 2, 2013

#690: Frank Gaffney

Frank Gaffney is an islamophobic pundit and a really not particularly
nice fellow. He writes for the Moonie Times,
(formerly) Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website, and is the founder of the
Center for Security Policy.
The Center is his propaganda organ and their expressed purpose is to keep
people “informed” about Islamism, terrorism, and the threat of creeping Sharia
– including promoting “research” showing that Sharia is taking over the American court system – as well as, for good measure, advocating global warming denialism as a
national security matter. Its website Family Security Matters is famous for
calling for George Bush to use nuclear weapons in Iraq and become “president
for life” since he was the only one who could ensure continued freedom and, by declaring
himself president for life, democracy in the Western World. Gaffney claims that
the intervention in Iraq was necessary because of Saddam’s weapons of mass
destruction. According to Gaffney it is obvious that he had them – regardless
of what reality and even the government have admitted concerning the matter.

Gaffney, of course, has all the credibility on issues
related to Islam possessed by Alex Jones and Victoria Jackson, but his rather
ardent campaigning has at least made him something of a perceived expert among
certain groups. He was invited to testify during the Murfreesboro mosque
debacle,
where his only contribution was an attempt to derail the court case into
discussing his conspiracy theories. As for their “research” proving the
existence “creeping Sharia”, it is not only badly carried out and stupid, but
also completely fraudulent (here is an example of Gaffney on how to deal with facts) insofar – in their “Shariah
in American Courts” report – as nearly every single case they have provided has
really been evidence against their conclusion,
but like young earth creationists and global warming denialists people like
Gaffney aren’t particularly proficient at evaluating evidence.

He famously made a fool of himself when he criticized Obama
for changing the logo of the Missile Defense Agency to include a crescent,
something he later retracted when he noticed that the logo was approved by the Bush administration rather
than the Obama administration. Among people Gaffney has accused of working with
(being agents of) The Muslim Brotherhood (which is trying to keep us “stupid”
about their plans to take over America),
are Obama (and yes, the conspiracy theories inhabit such reaches of pure paranoia that it
is virtually breathtaking;
as are his ignorance and lack of care with respect to that ignorance),
CPAC,
Huma Abedin,
Grover Norquist, Chuck Hagel,
David Petraeus, John Brennan (he speaks Arabic,
a crime too dreadful for anyone to commit if we wish to retain freedom,
dialogue and democracy), the federal government, Supreme Court Justice Elena
Kagan, and Herman Cain.
Chris Christie should also apparently be in prison for his cooperation with
Muslims.
Gaffney’s explicitly expressed solution to politicians palling around with
Muslims is to revive the solution that worked so well in the 50s and erect a new
“House Anti-American Activities Committee”.
Nevertheless, his idiocy can sometimes actually be rather amusing.

He has also been promoting conspiracy theories surrounding
Anders Breivik, in particular that his so-called manifesto was a hoax created
by Muslim extremists.
That one was a fall-back position after he dimly realized that his claims that
Breivik might be a secret Muslim didn’t quite fly even with his regular fans (Gaffney did claim that there was a
conspiracy to portray this obvious Muslim as a Christian nationalist as a step
in the organized efforts to turn Western Europe into Islamic tyrannies).

On a slightly different note, here is Gaffney claiming that “no one has done more to undermine womens’ rights than
Hillary Clinton,” but when you think about what Gaffney evidently believes
“rights” means (doesn’t apply to people Gaffney doesn’t like,
for instance) it sort of makes sense in its own, deranged way.

There is a fascinating report on the depth of the paranoia
of Gaffney and his gang here,
and a good Frank Gaffney resource here.

Diagnosis: Absolutely, utterly, unhingedly insane. The stupidity
of Frank Gaffney ought to be physically painful. Nevertheless he seems to have
pretty non-negligible impact.

Gaffney returned to the 2014 CPAC, demanding (with the support of Allen West) that the American Conservative Union kick Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan out of the upcoming conference because they are "secret Muslim Brotherhood agents."

Predictably enough, he has recently warned that Obama is aiding 'stealth jihadist groups' by relinquishing federal control of the Internet, thereby abundantly flaunting a complete lack of even cursory understanding of the relevant issue.